OPIUM POPPY FLOURISHES AS IN '90S, UN REPORTS

The new Afghan government has "largely failed" in its four-month effort to
eradicate the opium poppy crop in Afghanistan, which in recent years has
become the world's biggest producer of the raw material for heroin, United
Nations experts reported Sunday.

Their figures suggest that this year's crop, close to the high levels of
the late 1990s, could be worth more than $1 billion at the farm level in
Afghanistan.

"That's a big chunk of GDP," said Hector Maletta, a spokesman for the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization. This impoverished country's gross
domestic product for 1999, the latest estimate available, was $21 billion.

In 2000, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, and UN and U.S. drug
agencies determined that this led to almost total eradication.